Kiev’s prisoner exchange negotiator has acknowledged 1,500 Ukrainian servicemen missing in action, and called on relatives of MIA soldiers, preferably through the female line, to undergo DNA analysis to help identity the bodies.

The Prisoner Exchange Assist Center, under the auspices of the
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) estimates the number of MIA
soldiers in the conflict in the east at 1,500 soldiers, its
chairman revealed to Ukraine’s 24 TV channel.

Yury Tandit said searching for the missing servicemen is a
“tough job” being done by patriots and war veterans,
recommending the MIA soldiers’ relatives talk to the relevant
national authorities, and be patient.

“The most important is that blood relatives pass DNA analyses
- that really helps. This way we find bodies and fragments. It is
essential to find a person in whatever condition, dead or alive;
we ought to know who is where,” Tandit said.

Prisoner exchange is underway and is expected to be over by March
5, he said adding that so far Kiev authorities have released 52
POWs in exchange for 139 Ukrainian soldiers, 103 of them captured
during the Debaltsevo entrapment. Morale among the Ukrainian
prisoners is “bad,” Tandit noted.

Tandit acknowledged that Donetsk rebels had provided wounded
Ukrainian POWs with medical assistance, although they said those
imprisoned by “field commanders” weren’t properly treated.

Rebel forces commented on the issue, saying dead Ukrainian
soldiers scattered in Debaltsevo could not be collected because
Ukrainian troops and National Guards have been coached to rig
corpses with explosives, so the bodies need to be “twitched off”
to avoid mine traps. And nobody wants to be tasked with that.

The Sunday Times reported on February 22 that the causes of at
least half the Ukrainian servicemen being killed in the so-called
“anti-terrorist” operation were incompetent leadership, friendly
fire, the troops’ greenness, lack of discipline and the
mishandling of weapons.

“Six out of 10 casualties among the Ukrainian volunteers
occur because of blue-on-blue shooting [the army term for
friendly fire] and the inability to handle weapons,” a
40-year-old, naturalized Briton of Ukrainian descent, who
resigned from the British Army to train Ukrainian forces fighting
rebels, told the Sunday Times.

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO

The military expert known only for his callsign ‘Saffron’, who
had recently returned from Ukraine also said the command of the
Ukrainian army is dreadful.

There are about 30 volunteer battalions in Ukrainian forces, and
each wages its own war, not notifying its actions to other units.
There is no central command, no coordination and no standard
radio frequencies for communicating with each other. Instead of
using Motorola radio stations, soldiers use ordinary cell phones,
seemingly uncaring that their communications are anything but
secret.